Welcome help to bridge housing funding gap

The chancellor is offering landlords a chance to spearhead community regeneration projects, but David Fotheringham of the Chartered Institute of Housing says Mr Brown could have done more for the sector

Chancellor Gordon Brown has offered a potential boost to help bridge the funding gap facing social landlords' regeneration spending through the community investment tax credit. Housing providers will be very interested by the tax credit proposal and their potential to attract additional resources into communities where they work.

While the details of the scheme are still to be finalised, there would appear to be potential for social landlords to use the initiative as a mechanism for driving sustained regeneration work and keeping resources within local communities. With social landlords already under pressure to keep rents down, we are keen that all the options for directing resources into disadvantaged communities are investigated.

Registered social landlords are well placed to work with the new community investment tax credit scheme. They are often one of the few businesses with a presence on the ground in deprived neighbourhoods and have extensive experience of dealing with private finance.

We also welcome the measures to reduce VAT on residential property conversions and the costs of renovating homes empty for three years or more. The chancellor has moved some way to meeting the calls of bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Confederation of British Industry and Lord Rogers's Urban Task Force.

But he has fallen short of bringing in the full harmonisation of VAT on refurbishment and new build that is needed to promote inner city regeneration and reduce the incentive for building on green fields.

While the relief on stamp duty may encourage businesses to buy properties in deprived areas it may have only a marginal impact on residential sales. In many deprived areas, properties are changing hands for much less than the £60,000 level at which stamp duty kicks in.

 David Fotheringham is head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing